[…] The “Roch Wind” argument
for independence was rooted in this specific set of circumstances. The referendum
itself was a strange fluke, a result of the SNP’s unexpected majority in 2011, and
this flash of lightning just happened to strike a fireworks factory. Neither Scotland’s
nor Britain’s elites were properly prepared for the terrifying opportunities of
a Yes vote – the management of fundamental conflicts of interest between classes
and interest groups which had hitherto been sunken into a stagnant political binary
at Westminster, the enormous pressure to keep at least some of their impossible
promises, and so on. This, combined with the raw energy of the Yes campaign and
the experience of a post-independence labour movement, could have opened the door
to genuinely radical possibilities for dissent and disobedience in an independent
Scotland.
We also identified something
sinister in the “Team Scotland” or “all of us first” attitudes of the SNP and the
Common Weal, which emerged not only from the nationalist and cross-class basis of
those organisations but also the nature of devolution itself – devolution in Scotland
has always been innately defensive, concerned with mediating between competing interests
rather than taking sides, with key economic powers and conflicts obscured by the
bogeyman of “Westminster”.
The SNP are experts at this, sublimating
their own sectional divisions, and Scotland’s, into the overriding goal of independence.
This allows them to achieve both internal unity and a consistent, competent and
compromising approach to government. […]
'After The Roch Wind', Roch Wind,21 September 2014
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